George can say all he wants how "Star Wars is for kids" but has this guy even looked at his fan base???

Perhaps one of the simplest and finest points made thus far, DS. George Lucas simply lost his edge in the years between these two trilogies. What we're left with is a sad attempt to tie in to the original trilogy laced with the likes of Jar Jar Binks. I mean, it's not like GL couldn't write meaningful dialogue before. The romantic tension between Han and Leia was perfectly believable and natural, yet when you hear the horrid dialogue between Anakin and Padme it's like nails on a chalkboard. What the hell happened? It's like he's trying to make a Disney film and doesn't know how.

Much of the Han/Leia dialog was rewritten/ad libbed on-set because the script wasn't working.

I know I've said it before, but the prequels were not all that drastic a change from the original trilogy in some regards. More of a continuation of what was already happening in Return of the Jedi. That movie was loaded down with puppets and silly, cartoonish characters that served little purpose other than to sell more action figures. The puppets looked like puppets, the Ewoks looked like stuffed toys and the pig guard costumes looked like some kind of bizarre theme park mascots. It was helped by having the same story arc we already enjoyed, and central characters we already liked, as well as some decent action.

I don't think II or III are that bad. Episode II's love story slowed the movie down, but it was needed for the overall plot. Episode I could've been good, but there were too many dumb scenes. Anakin accidentally flies defeats a space station, shutting down an entire robot army? Come on! Jar-Jar was ok at first, when he introduced the Jedi to the Gungans, but most of his later scenes serve no purpose. They're supposed to be funny, but they're not; they're annoying.

I've read some synopsis's of Lucas's earliest Star Wars drafts; they're just as complicated as Episodes I, II, III. He decided that he didn't have enough money/the right technology to make the movie, so he wrote more drafts. Gradually, the plot got tighter, simpler, and better. When Episodes I, II, III were released, he had more money, and technology had improved. He could do anything he wanted. Perhaps that's the problem with a lot of new movies, technology has gotten to the point where a director can do anything, so they make fewer drafts, resulting in worse plots.

Episode II's love story slowed the movie down, but it was needed for the overall plot.

That's certainly a matter of perspective.

This is just my pov, but I think the whole enchilada loses with all this humanizing backstory Lucas gave Vader.

In SW, before any sequels/prequels, we had:

--Vader was this super scary villain that could choke people from across the room and 'sense' the presence of an old nemesis on board his star ship

--The Empire would destroy entire inhabited planets - millions of people - just to spite one possible Rebel and demonstrate the power of their new weaponry.

--Obi Wan/Ben was mysteriously gifted - he could slink around undetected in an enemy military base and teach Luke to fight things he could not even see.

--Luke was a whiny brat that happened into heroism mostly out of Honor to Ben; Ben may have seen his destiny, but Luke sure did not 'feel' it.

--Han was super cool and actually acted like a pirate/smuggler.

Frankly, all this is the makings of a GOOD story. I don't CARE what made Vader angry/evil, I don't care about ANY of the crap Lucas put on us in ANY of the sequels/prequels. It's just not that interesting.

The story telling in every movie after SW is nowhere near as tight at SW itself. All those drafts Lucas went through to get SW made MADE IT BETTER. Going back and making additional movies to fill in all dreck he had to revise OUT just ruin it for me.

Yes, ESB is interesting because it's 'darker,' but the Vader is Luke's father bit just made me gag at the time and I still cannot stand it. That's Soap Opera BS and, imo, beneath the tightness/interestingness of the first story. (*)

If I want a Soap Opera, I'll watch "Days of Our Lives."

I think one of the reasons fans cannot stand the prequels is because there's just nothing there. Nothing. They introduce nothing new story wise and make 'connections' to the original in stretchy, reachy ways.

(*) Is the first SW perfect? No. But it's FUN. It's very, very different from everything else in the series. Maybe the first one was 'better' because it was based on other, better written, stories in classical literature, and the rest were truly from the mind George Lucas. I don't know.

George Lucas is a lot like Gene Roddenberry in some ways. Both produced their best work when they had to work within limitations and answer to other people.

The more control Lucas got, and the more resources he had at his disposal, the worse his movies got. Compare that with what happened when Roddenberry got carte blanche from Paramount and made his slow, pretentious, long and expensive epic.

That's why I'm optimistic about Disney owning the Star Wars franchise. Somebody else is in control, and Lucas is reduced to consultant/figurehead, just as Roddenberry was.

Episode II's love story slowed the movie down, but it was needed for the overall plot.

That's certainly a matter of perspective.

This is just my pov, but I think the whole enchilada loses with all this humanizing backstory Lucas gave Vader.

In SW, before any sequels/prequels, we had:

--Vader was this super scary villain that could choke people from across the room and 'sense' the presence of an old nemesis on board his star ship

--The Empire would destroy entire inhabited planets - millions of people - just to spite one possible Rebel and demonstrate the power of their new weaponry.

--Obi Wan/Ben was mysteriously gifted - he could slink around undetected in an enemy military base and teach Luke to fight things he could not even see.

--Luke was a whiny brat that happened into heroism mostly out of Honor to Ben; Ben may have seen his destiny, but Luke sure did not 'feel' it.

--Han was super cool and actually acted like a pirate/smuggler.

Frankly, all this is the makings of a GOOD story. I don't CARE what made Vader angry/evil, I don't care about ANY of the crap Lucas put on us in ANY of the sequels/prequels. It's just not that interesting.

The story telling in every movie after SW is nowhere near as tight at SW itself. All those drafts Lucas went through to get SW made MADE IT BETTER. Going back and making additional movies to fill in all dreck he had to revise OUT just ruin it for me.

Yes, ESB is interesting because it's 'darker,' but the Vader is Luke's father bit just made me gag at the time and I still cannot stand it. That's Soap Opera BS and, imo, beneath the tightness/interestingness of the first story. (*)

If I want a Soap Opera, I'll watch "Days of Our Lives."

I think one of the reasons fans cannot stand the prequels is because there's just nothing there. Nothing. They introduce nothing new story wise and make 'connections' to the original in stretchy, reachy ways.

(*) Is the first SW perfect? No. But it's FUN. It's very, very different from everything else in the series. Maybe the first one was 'better' because it was based on other, better written, stories in classical literature, and the rest were truly from the mind George Lucas. I don't know.

Sorry if anyone said this--I didn't quite read every post--but one of the big inconsistencies to me was the scene in ANH where Darth Vadar gets insulted by...empire office #5 (???) and Vadar chokes him.

He says something about Vadar's ancient religion being hocus pocus and that the space station is totally badass and the force is nothing. I had always assumed that the Jedi had been in the shadows for generations, that it was stories from centuries ago that few people believed. It would be like hearing stories about fireball-throwing, lightning summoning medieval knights who whooped up on everyone back in the day...but everyone assumed they were myths and yet this guy over hear acts like he's one of them. And Vadar proves the power of the force by choking him--something that seemed to surprise everyone in the room as if acts of Force power are not normal.

And yet the Jedi where a ruling body of galactic police only 30 years earlier! Everyone knew about the Jedi, they were jumping all over the place and mind-effing drug dealers into being better people. It seems odd that suddenly Jedi had become this forgotten ancient order in 30 years.

I had assumed, growing up, that the way Jedi training worked was, a Jedi student was found by a master, trained a bit, and then ultimately sent to Yoda for the final training. Obi-Wan's "I thought I could train your father better than Yoda" meant in his arrogance, he trained Anakin himself, never sending him to Yoda for the final bit, the bit Luke got. I assumed that Jedi were always small in number, a secret order, and one that was long out of the public eye. Rumors, and nothing more.

It seems jaded to me to see Luke as "whiny." He's just a kid trying to find his way through the dangerous new world he's been introduced to. The kids are supposed to relate to Luke, this is why he's written that way. Now Anakin in Episode I, there's a brat! But I would expect little Darth Vader to be nothing less.